3 tips to dominating your niche like Cash App

Welcome to PROse! This newsletter is all about breaking down the strategy & tactics used in creating the best content on the internet.

After a two-week break to get my life together (i.e. settle into my new apartment), we’re finally back!

I know this is much later than I normally send the letter out. Transparently, it’s part of an experiment I’m running on performance. If you all prefer evening sends, I might try switching up the content format—maybe interviews rather than breakdowns.

Let me know what you think. Anyway, let’s jump into this week’s edition.

There’s a secret cadre of tech companies called the 5S (read: “fives”): Shopify, Stripe, Square, Spotify, and Salesforce. The reason you haven’t heard of this super exclusive group/acronym is because I made it up. Doesn’t it sound good?

Anyway, each company in the 5S deeply understands their audience and has best-in-class marketing execution skills. I’d be willing to say they have the best marketing execution in their respective industries.

Technically, we’re talking about Cash App today, not Square. But the line is so blurred that they still go together in most people’s minds.

Last week Cash App released an ad featuring Kendrick Lamar, ExavierTV (a hot content creator/comedian), and Ray Dalio. It was another proof point that Cash App is the cultural leader in fintech/neo-banking.

Cash App’s mission is improving people’s relationship with money. They’re in the business of making money and finance cool and accessible. It’s a marketer’s dream, or at least mine. It leaves a lot of room for innovation and trying new things.

With a young base (18-39), Cash App is fully aware of one thing: you’re not going to win over Gen Z and even many millennials by putting on financial education webinars. You need a strategy for getting their attention and earning their trust before they’re willing to evangelize you to their friends. Thus, their strategy.

Cash App’s GTM strategy can be summed up in one sentence: “become the product cultural icons want to partner with”. They understand their audience is low-trust. That only gets worse over time when you look at the macro environment (e.g. low institutional trust across the board).

Instead of trying to force their way in, they bridged the gap with people their audience already trusts. It’s a classic influencer marketing move. But no other fintech company, let alone banking institution, is doing it as well as them.

Going back to an earlier point, this is what makes Cash App, and Square at-large, so good. They really understand their audience and they meet them where they are.

And it works. Cash App’s revenue in 2021 was $12B with over $1B in profit. Not bad.

Beyond the tactical lessons I’ll get into below, more marketing orgs can learn from this. Understand your business, understand your customer/audience, and create content that gets them to trust you. I could probably write an entire email on how understanding your business makes you a much more effective marketer.

Now to the actionable insights.

You might be thinking “I can’t afford an A-list rapper to evangelize my company.” Maybe not. But here’s what you can afford to do:

1. Distribute stories, not infomercials.

Most marketers are not good at this. They make ads and content that feel like those old OxiClean commercials. Pitch, pitch, pitch—as fast as you can.

And the result is usually poor performance as your audience eyes glaze over and they skip to the next relevant post in their feed.

This is why I like Cash App’s strategy much better.

• Plot: ExavierTV is a budding entrepreneur saved money to open up a barber shop

• Conflict: To raise more money for the launch, he gambled the money and lost it

• Resolution: Kendrick introduces Ray Dalio to give financial advice about taking unhedged risks

Is it mind-blowing, cutting-edge information? Probably not to this audience, or maybe not even to a sizable portion of Cash App’s audience. But it is engaging. And engagement builds affinity.

The next time you’re thinking about paying for an ad that just spouts off your product features and benefits, think about how you can turn those into an actual story.

If you need inspiration, check out Notion’s recent video.

2. Get to brand affinity, not just awareness

Getting people to know you is one thing. Getting them to care about you is how you turn lurkers into customers.

Most brands that have the money to hire Kendrick Lamar to star in an ad would just make a video of him using their product. That might get people’s attention but it wouldn’t make them care.

Affinity is getting people to care about and trust your product. Another way Cash App did this was through their famous Twitter giveaways. It’s a pretty on-the-nose tactic—who wouldn’t care about a product that was giving them money. But it worked, nonetheless.

After a while, they even started partnering with popular brands to do giveaways around popular topics and conversations, like the COVID-19 economic crash and student loans. It’s a way to say they’re in tune with their audience and care about the things they care about.

The best way to know you’re building affinity and not just awareness is to listen to how your audience talks about you.

Some easy options:

• Review customer support emails/calls

• Look at your Twitter/LinkedIn mentions

• Check G2, Capterra, and other review sites

• Dig into niche forums like Facebook groups and Reddit

• Do an advanced Twitter search to find people who may not be mentioning you directly

3. Find the wave and ride it

It’s likely that Cash App’s campaigns would’ve been successful no matter what, but jumping into trending conversations and using influencers who are hot at the moment gave them an extra boost.

Kendrick released a #1 Billboard album a few months ago and is currently on tour (the ad even played at the opening of his concert). ExavierTV has a fast growing Instagram account. Ray Dalio has been gaining popularity after publishing Principles and Diddy acknowledging him as a personal mentor.

It was great timing and the right people. In fact, I’ve seen otherwise mediocre campaigns and content take off because they were timed correctly.

So, pay attention to the conversations your audience is having and/or cares about. When the moment is right and the conversation is relevant, strike.

The lift in attention and affinity that comes with being in the right cultural moment is worth its weight in gold (cash).

Aaand, that’s it for this week’s breakdown.

For a quick recap:

• Think about the audience you serve and how you can use content to build trust

• Focus on distributing stories instead of product informercials

• Remember your goal is to build brand affinity, not just brand awareness

• When you see something taking off with your audience, figure out how you can jump in

Have a great weekend - see you next week.

P.S. Consider getting outside and taking in as much of the beautiful weather as you can. Summer’s almost over :(